Title

Does water amount affect aquatic plant growth?

Problem Scenario

People that want to grow aquatic plants to feed their fish or turtle or anything that lives in water.
(pond, river, ocean, lake, swamp,)

Broad Question aquatic

Does water amount and container size affect plant growth?

Specific Question

Does the amount of water affect aquatic plant growth?

Hypothesis

The size of the container will affect the plant growth because it has to have room to grow. Also the more water the faster it will grow, also the more plants there will be. Because when you are growing plants in a lake (nature grows them) it has a lot of water then maybe a cup full. So I think that the more water the more plants there are.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable: water amount.

Dependent Variable: plant growth.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled: water amount

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

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General Plan

Two tanks will be filled with two separate amounts of water in them. Over the course of 6 weeks pictures will be taken that the end of each week. Along with the photo a detailed observation will be taken. In the end, it will determine if the amount of water affects aquatic plant growth.

Potential Problems And Solutions

The people who grow these type of plants would want to know.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

That its winter and not a lot of sun. Also I have animals that might play with it.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

What is your experimental unit?

Two plants, amount of plants that branch of from that one seed depending on water amount.

Number Of Trials:

8.

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

one plant.

Number of Observations:

once every week in 4 weeks in all.

When data will be collected

Looking for an actual date or dates here. This is requiring you to commit to your project.

Where will data be collected?:

at my school

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
water	-	mr.littlefield	free
cups	3	home	?
plants	various	mr. littlefield	?

Detailed Procedure

1.)First find some sun
(window, outside, etc)
2.)Then put the 8 red solo cups filled with 2 different amounts of water.
(make sure that they are the same size)
3.)Fill them with different amounts of water
(the first set has say like 6 ounces and etc for the others you choose.)
4.)then you put the plants into the water.
(you watch over the coarse of 4 weeks.
5.)in the end you should have the answer!
(does the amount of water effect the plant growth?)

Diagram

Photo List

Time Line

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Data Table

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

Graphs

Photos

Discussion

The data showed some different patterns. Like one of them is that cup #1 with 200ml grew 9 plants! The others cups mostly had like 3 or less. I thought that was very weird. I would've of thought that the 200ml had more growth than the 400ml. The relationship wasn't that strong because the plant growth still went up at a constant rate so i think that the plants grew based on the nutrients in to water the not the amount. So I don't think the relationship was very strong. I had enough time to finish and answer my question. I didn't even start until a week after because of not getting the supplies in time. I had to wait for the lake water and the plants themselves. My project contained some errors, like fuzz and bugs etc getting into my cups. Also the way that the sun hit certain places I had to move the cups constantly. My experiment couldv'e been more thought out, it was very rushed so it was was very simple.

Results

The results are that the cups with less water had a lot more plant growth over the coarse of my experiment. My hypothesis was wrong, it was the opposite I would think that the more lake water the more nutritious.

Conclusion

The data showed that the less water the faster and more plants there will be. The relationship between the independent and dependent is that the dependent variable wouldn't be possible without the independent variable. Yes I was able to answer my experiment question. The answer I got from my experiment was that the less water the more plant growth. I think that the reason is that even though there is less water there is a lot of nutritious.
I had a lot problems with this experiment. The reasons being is that I started late because is didn't get the plants or lake water in time. Also its winter and the sun wasn't very strong so they didn't grow very fast. Also other things like bugs, fuzz, etc have gotten in the way. over all it was a pretty stressing experiment. At one point the plants didn't even grow, they were the same for a very long time. Then about two weeks in, the less water cups started to sprout other plants linking onto the base. I didn't know what was the problem. I thought maybe they were just slow. So I switched the order they were in so some of them got some more sun. I occasionally switched them around.
I think that my experiment could of been more advanced in some ways. Like maybe if I had all sorts of different plants. Or if I had a way to use the plants in some way to create and better something. Like, to see if it made the water more full of nutrients for the fish or etc. Or maybe you could use the plants to filter the water in a certain area instead if chemicals? There are probably many things you could do with different aquatic plants.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

There are people who like to learn about plants like mine. Or people who are growing them and are not so advanced in plant growing. So when someone looks at my project they will learn a lot about the way they grow and the pace etc. Someone might have a duck that eats the type of plant I grew. The spirodela plants also can be called "Duck Meal" or "Duck Meat". That is how my experiment may be helpful to the community.

Background Research

The aquatic plant I will be using is called spirodela. It can only grow in water, The leaves from that will grow from the little seedling sprout will float to the surface. The plant is also know as "duck meat" or "Duck Meal" (Ducks Eat It.) Spirodela species are members of the Lemnacaeaea family. This plant can be found in many places its a worldwide plant. There isn't a stem on it. Only roots that connect to near spirodela plants. There are not leafs on this plant the body is called a thallus. their habitat is in lakes, ponds, marsh, and swamps, slow streams, etc. This plant is usually mistaken for other aquatic plants. These plants grow very slowly for me. Its been about 3 weeks and only a few have grown. Some have grown one other plant and others have another three other plants sprouting off the original.

References

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Abstract

What I did was fairly simple and quick. I filled 8 solo cups with two different amounts of water. One had 400ml, and the other one with 200ml. It took about 4 weeks to complete this process. In the end the cups with less water had more growth of the aquatic plant. But the weird thing is that over time the cups with more water had more plants. And the less water ones had not as much growth activity. But the answer to my question does water amount have affect on aquatic plant growth, the answer is yes. The less water the more growth over time the plants will have. The weird thing is that my hypothesis was that the more water the more plant growth. I guess that its the opposite.